Hearts Align
by atreriaestus
Summary: An assortment of Kingdom Hearts drabbles that just don't fit anywhere else. ::Yaoi, Yuri, And Het. Ratings Will Vary. Teen For Now.::
1. Sculptor

These are simply an assortment of KH-Drabbles (as I often have so many) that can't be categorized as "oneshots". I'd still like to share them with you, here. And what better way to start out with than one of my favorite pairings?

Saix/Demyx, written in second person. My first (and likely only) time of this.

* * *

Demyx creates his own world. You can see it, there, in his eyes, brimming and filling over the top and bleeding from that deep ocean until he drowns in it, drowns _you_ in it. It falls over the balcony, dripping down the castle squires, spills out into the City That Shouldn't Exist and makes it become the City That Demyx Sculpted.

Maybe things would be simpler that way. Maybe you wouldn't be so hopelessly devoted to The Superior. Maybe you could make a life with him, with that blond hair and those smiling eyes, and, god, sometimes you just want to hold him.

But you never do. You just sit next to him in silence as he keeps dreaming his world, typing it up with his guitar strings instead of writing his report on his last mission. You should really be forcing him to it, you know after all, you're a disciplinarian, right? Xemnas trusts you, but you can't bring yourself to rip the boy from his make-believing.

Call it weakness. Call it elements. It doesn't really matter anyway, because the boy's more of a spider than you'll ever be, and you're the fly caught in his wet-sugar-sparkling web.

He's too intricate for you. The Superior is easier to understand with his mechanical drawl and clinical lack of respect, a formulated and intentional simplification.

But Demyx ... Demyx is wild and untamable, something to be feared. He cannot be held for too long or he starts to wither away in the grasp, like a flower withering against a bad chemical you're the chemical or how water only clings to you in little droplets but is otherwise out-of-reach.

He's that fresh, cool splash.

... And that's probably why you can't "love" The Superior like you do him.


	2. Pulling The Seams

Axel/Roxas. And, of course, one of fandom's favorite pairings next. Because the rules say I must be fair.

* * *

Roxas is his savior. From the day he comes, he's the bleach on the stains of blood, making a miraculous tie-die across the black-red-burning-white that has become his mind, pulling his thoughts away from the snake scales and to the golden feathers.

Really, it wasn't his fault that he'd become a nobody. Nor was it Roxas's. Or any of theirs. And they had simply fallen under rule of a megalomaniac who couldn't tell up from down without an in-depth analysis.

It was sort of like heartless: how they all flocked to the strongest person.

But not Roxas. He didn't bow to rule; he simply accepted his missions with a tight jaw and vacant eyes. He was simply ... there.

He didn't even mock emotions like the rest of them, because he had no emotions to recall. And when Axel tried to teach him what he was feeling when if anything, Roxas just _looked_ at him.

He didn't let him in. Roxas had the key to prying open Axel's chest and finding exactly what was beneath him: all ventricles and wiring and dusty shelves. But Axel couldn't return the favor, couldn't offer anything in return.

Except to watch him fall apart. It was amusement, right?

Maybe Roxas leaving just gave him excuse to slip out from his chains, as though after suffering from long starvation, a trail of jelly beans had been laid before him.

Hell, he'd eat breadcrumbs if he had to.

But when found Roxas wasn't _his Roxas_ anymore, the seams pulled a little.

Roxas said his name and the thread wound back around him warmly.

And when it was so violently ripped away, Axel broke, kept breaking until he made the outside reflect the inside.

Sora called it "Sacrifice". Roxas would've called it "Absurd".

And maybe that thought alone was what made him smile as he died.


	3. Dirty Gun

Cloud/Aeris. Not technically KH-Verse, but ... shh.

* * *

He is broken and beaten in when they first meet, and even though he rescues her, she has a feeling she'll be returning the favor fairly quickly. Not that she minds. She loves saving people before they even realize it, slipping under the radar and escaping without so much as a whisper of the wind.

He won't know what's coming.

But he is broken and beaten even after she's known him for a few months. The city is dirty and exanimate, clinging to every follicle of his being, threatening him with a luring, metallic promise of death. Irony becomes his iron shackles, chaining him to the rusting buildings and dirty streets.

He comes from a small town. She can see it in his eyes, the way his heart is large and tender despite being locked away in a chest that's pin-and-hinge.

It flutters open now and again, surprising them all with poetic words and stained-glass-window eyes.

The city isn't right for him. Mindless order obeying isn't either. No wonder he didn't become a SOLDIER. But she can't bring herself to actually say that to him.

ShinRa could never have used a boy who couldn't march in time, couldn't buy into the lies, couldn't breathe the polluted, smoke-induced serum that made them all the drones under the same rule.

But, that's okay. Because she has use for him. She has a love for him. And she'll take his hand and lead him through the crypt of his own self.


	4. Not That Heartless

A sadder Demyx/Axel with undertones of Axel/Roxas.

* * *

He hates Axel. He hates Axel for being this traitorous, double-timing asshole that everyone knows he is. Maybe he was just a bit more naive for thinking, _he wouldn't do that, he couldn't do that, he's not that __**heartless.**_

Apparently he was wrong. He was wrong to think Axel wouldn't chase after Roxas. He was wrong to think he couldn't leave him alone with his only friend in the castle his own mind. He was wrong to think he wasn't that heartless to let him be sent off to his death sentence without so much as a good-bye.

He should've known. He's been so busy with chasing after The Little Golden Boy, so busy trying not to get himself killed.

Because Xemnas would kill him now. They both know it.

Instead, he's become the sacrificial lamb. He knows it, can see it written on Xemnas's intolerably unshaken face, even though he's not supposed to be able to read those subtle nuances.

He couldn't cry if he wanted to. Not really. It wouldn't be fair to either of them. He supposes Axel's just doing what he needs to do to survive, that basic instinct still encrypted on all of them, the primal reason for existence: simply to exist.

He doesn't really want to exist, though, if it means this sort of betrayal. Sadly, betrayal is also a fundamental shade to every person's faces.

He sighs. Plays his guitar for a few moments. Gets shipped off to the slaughter like a useless, sterile bull.

_It's not fair,_ he can't help but think, as Sora looks at him with those Roxas-not-Roxas-blue eyes full of Roxas-not-Roxas defiance. _It's just not fair._

Death is swift. And Axel is there as the droplets disperse and hit the ground like miniscule tidal waves.


	5. Calamity

Cloud/Demyx. Those of you that read _Mute_ know I rather like this pairing.

* * *

He's attracted to Cloud in the most venial yet simplistic of ways: the violence hidden beneath him, the sorrow in his eyes that hardens when he sees him and makes _him_ hard, the feather-dusted grief over his shoulders.

He's so reactive to everything around him that it makes Demyx smile. He could be a water element, maybe, the way he adjusts to the new and coils back to stimulus, a living, breathing thing with a pulsing, beating heart and it drives Demyx crazy with lust.

To _have him_, to _be him_. To be this creature who acts so normally and lives with himself in such splendorous comfort.

But someone once told him he was delusional for thinking those things about Cloud he can't remember the guy's name? tall, tall guy with so, so much red..., that Cloud was so uncomfortable and different that he stood out, as if he were Lucifer standing next to Michael and Raphael.

That only makes the imagery in Demyx's mind all the more glorified.

However, actually _talking_ to him comes with a different difficulty. He is silent, and he is still, and he does not ... want ... to talk.

Not that Demyx lets this fell his crest, and when he finally has the bravery to learn over and kiss his cheek, Cloud simply pretends nothing happened.

He doesn't want to get a Nobody's hopes up or, anyone's, for that matter. It could only end in ... calamity.

And Demyx knows if Cloud heard him say that, his only response would be, "interesting choice in words".


	6. Love From A Queen

Larxene/Marluxia. I should really submit this and claim it under 30 Confessions, but I just can't write this pairing anymore. It makes me sad.

* * *

She is his little princess. She must've been a daddy's girl in a past life, because she adjusts to having her every whim fulfilled quite easily. Marquis de Sade the perfect best friend, a curving spine and bruised knees the perfect leg rest.

But he uses her, like a King would never do to a princess, he uses her acid tongue and her sparkling wit brighter, surely, than her electricity? and her mastery of lies which is a mastery only subservient to her mastery of him.

She is a dreamy perfection, milky white in the stupor of sleep and rimmed absolutely with black that cuts and bleeds and makes him awake, her sudden and full lips red above but green and dead beneath like a poisoned apple: ripe and succulent.

Even her mirror lies to her, telling her how she's fair. But he'll never correct it, or her, would rather kiss a tender shoulder and agree while she imagines herself crowned in jewels.

He bends to her because she is useful. He goes down on her because she would go below even that and sink her hands in the blood-stained dirt for him. He loves her because she loves her function as a conspirator.

It is a love that will never break, and it is a love they will want to have again.


	7. Character Defaults

Roxas/Sora. Most likely a subconscious dedication to Tsu.

* * *

They never completely become one. He was promised completion, freedom from the synthetic memories that override his sense of reality, freedom from the violent double-ripping of his emotions he learned them as Sora, forgot them as XIII, remembered them as Roxas, and now suffers without them as Sora-Not-Sora, the _thing_ stuck inside Sora's flesh and the constant shift in his personality.

All he wants is peace. It's hard to find that inside the mind of a boy who's weighted with the task of saving the universe. He wakes with his shoulders aching, because slumber is the only time that importance registers in Sora.

He sees his dreams: the dark, twining corridors so unfamiliar to his poor soul bathed in light, the best friend that could so easily be hated returning once again to darkness making love to that obscurity?, the friends that surround him in every breath bleeding from every orifice.

It's nerve-wracking. He wakes up, sputtering and horrible and confused, stomach in knots and mouth dry and chalky. He cries, dry sobs like fingers sliding on the keys of a piano up his spine.

Roxas doesn't know what to do. He only listens as the boy babbles incoherently about his fears to this phantom Sora-Not-Sora transparent but so _heavy_ as he sinks into the mattress next to him.

And Sora apologizes profusely, even as Roxas promises there's nothing to be sorry for, nothing he could change.

Roxas is ... decidedly sure this is where he's supposed to be.


	8. Never Wrote Back

Sora/Kairi. I know: WTF, right?

* * *

When Sora comes home, there is celebration and light. Kairi watches him from the shore as he rejoices with his other friends, looking to her with a smile that aligns there hearts, if only for a moment. Riku is grinning from the side, arms crossed and the King perched on his shoulder.

Things are better. Things are brighter, even in the night, when fireworks dance in the sky for the celebration of a hero's return. Kairi can't help but feel the sad but warm pang in her heart when she sees Sora and his parents embrace for the first time in ... too long. Sora looks desperate and fleeting, but his parents aren't as occupied (having unknowingly forgotten their son's existence for a year).

They sneak off. It's not something they've ever done before. Usually it was Sora and Riku always sneaking off to have fun in the night (back when the night wasn't such a vexatious thing) or play a game of strength in the pit-black wilderness of the ocean on their island.

Kairi doesn't even bother to wonder if it's a taboo thing. They've both matured in age, curiosity for the unknown driving them to do things they may not have done when they were last regularly spending time together.

There's an odd tension there now: a pressure point on the back of her neck, slipping into her until it flutters as a captive in her breast (and other areas even far more secret than that).

Sora's doing his best not to notice as he avoid eye contact with her and watches the wildlife around like he's actually missed it. It's like it's back to routine after a vacation that went across the universe. He is restless.

She can only smile, folding her arms gently in the small of her back. He fidgets more and then gives a cry of _"oh!"_ and rummages in his oversized pockets.

Kairi takes a step forward in questioning as he hands her a piece of paper with her perfect hand-writing on it, the dots and slashes of her calligraphy something of which to be envious. _"Thinking of you, wherever you are..."_ She recites in a whisper that's surely quieter than the pounding of her heart (of Sora's heart) in her ears.

And that's when Sora takes her cheek softly in his warm hands, tilts her just gently to give her the most chaste kiss she's ever experienced.

There's magic. She knew there would be, this warmth in her belly and tingling on her fingertips. The secret paradise behind her eyelids is brimming and full of light and maybe even sheds a secret tear.

Sora understands.

Breathless for a moment, her eyes are locked on his ... before she gives him a playful punch in his arm that he tries too hard not to whine about and rub.

"You never wrote back, you jerk."

They both laugh, and Sora can't help but grin up at the sky swollen with stars. None of them will fall tonight.


	9. The Art We Practice

Zexion and Saix, but not as a pairing. Delving into Organization politics again.

* * *

Saix isn't the least bit perplexed when he finds Zexion in the laboratory. He still has those scientific tendencies carried over from a past life, from a time when Saix didn't know the person named "Ienzo". Even now he only knows him as another stranger in a black cloak, another machine without the hum of a motor.

Another discarded tool for lapsed profiteering.

No, what he's truly confused about is what exactly Number VI is doing. There's a disheveled piece a paper in his hand with a disheveled look in his eyes that shows confusion.

It looks like a complex piece of work. With all the books he's read, Saix is surprised the younger isn't more fluent with simply folding paper.

Slowly, the blue of his eyes rises up from the beige and sees the Superior's Assistant with one hand on the door frame. He looks pacifistic now, but one can never be too sure when it comes to the Diviner.

A nod is his only greeting.

Zexion returns to glancing at the book, a nervous residue seeming to cling to his shoulders under the taller's presence and he eventually sets the piece of paper away and folds his hands on the table to look again to his comrade. "May I help you, Saix?"

"What are you doing?" is the cutthroat response from the man who's only just now walking into the room, picking up the folded paper and looking at it, as though it were a foreign invader in his territory.

"It's a past time my Somebody rather enjoyed. It's called 'origami'."

"It looks like a waste of time."

He almost flinches at this, but keeps up his calm demeanor. He stands, walking about the table and plucking the experiment from VII's hands, smoothing out the corners. It's a successful piece, but could use some perfecting. "Do you know nothing of war?"

Saix snorts, a quiet insisting that he's fluent in the art.

"Then why is it you know nothing of creation?"

There is silence.

And the Schemer sighs and shakes his head, taking the man's hand and putting the construction in his hand. "You wouldn't be much more than a basic soldier with that attitude."

Saix snorts again and crushes the frail thing in his hand as he walks away.

His response is unspoken but holds all the power that vocals couldn't give it. _"Then why am I the one hand-chosen to be Xemnas's assistant?"_


	10. Syringes

A lonely Zexion drabble. Trying to get used to his character. This drabble may actually evolve into a oneshot, if I let it.

* * *

Zexion was incredulous when received his title and weapon from Xehan--... _Xemnas..._

A book. _How befitting,_ Not-Ansem told him, his fellow scientists nodding, as he was the last prince to be crowned. _It will serve you well, I am sure._

This dark-skinned man was not the curious, ever-watching boy he once fell in love with. Not anymore, not that they apparently had no more need for those feelings now that every one of their failed experiments was a real-life nightmare.

Zexion suffered from them nightly. He had been the first to volunteer for the subject of shifted sleeping patterns, and they were all surprised and shocked if they truly could be when the youngest of them all could no longer close his eyes for more than three-fourths an hour at any given time, leaving his mind restless and his body lethargic.

... "body"? _Was it still his body?_ It surely must have been. He still had freckles in the same spots, still had the same pallor, felt the same beneath his own touch.

It was just ... emptier. One of their first tests had been to check if their blood types were the same, or if it had somehow mutated, but they found ... nothing. No pulse, no filler, nothing to be sucked into the syringe. It was most disquieting.

They continue along their ways: surprising discoveries, new variables activating in their early ... "life" giving their new abilities more refined characteristics.

Vexen was conducting an experiment with a heartless and the silhouette's reaction to liquid nitrogen when his powers sporadically flared and he, only then, learned the depth with which he could control ice.

Xigbar had walked right into his powers. Quite literally, as he was walking with his nose in a book and only realized he was walking up the only half-finished walls of Castle Oblivion when Xaldin called to him from below.

One by one, they all found their abilities until, once again, Zexion was the last to be crowned.

And after months passed, he began to worry, eventually confiding in Lexaeus with whom he still shared his past-worldly relations.

_It'll come with time,_ he said patiently, _but, for now, let us figure out why you still can't sleep._ The nightmares had progressed, mangling and entwining throughout his body every time he slept, leaving him breathless and writhing in the restraints put on him every time a new trial was begun.

Until _Xemnas_ came unto them and revealed the answer, just as he always did, always perfectly on time.

"He is a Master of Illusion. They begin in his dreams, crawl from the psyche and along the walls until he drives himself slowly insane."

_But I'm not insane._

The smirk was sickening. "Not yet, anyway."


End file.
